Report: Benghazi attack preventable

The attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi could have been prevented, according to a bipartisan report the Senate Intelligence Committee released Wednesday.

The report also seeks to clarify accusations about the response to the attack by the White House. It blames intelligence agencies for incorrect talking points instead of administration officials, who Republicans have accused of covering up the reason for the attack.

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“The committee worked on a bipartisan basis to investigate the various allegations that have come out since the terrorist attacks in Benghazi in September 2012 and to get to the truth about what happened leading up to, during and after the attacks,” Intelligence Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “I hope this report will put to rest many of the conspiracy theories and political accusations about what happened in Benghazi.”

The report looks at the run-up and response to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. It includes a detailed narrative of what happened the night of the attack. The report is redacted in places, omitting some of the actions of CIA personnel.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the report does not change the administration’s own conclusion that security should have been tighter in Benghazi.

“This reinforces what other investigations have found, which is that there was not security to protect the four Americans who lost their lives,” he said Wednesday.

Feinstein told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the report proves that the State Department needs to do a better job assessing risks.

“I think where this report goes is that there needs to be better analysis within State of intelligence, and that they really need to move to see that these facilities are secure,” Feinstein said. “I believe to the extent I know that that is happening. There are other facilities that are potentially dangerous, and they know which they are, and I think they need to tend to that.”

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said that while he hasn’t read the entire Senate report, he saw nothing that differed from the concurrent investigation he is conducting.

“I think their conclusions are very similar to the investigation that the House Intelligence Committee is going through,” Rogers said.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he would like to see former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testify again about the attacks. But he raised no issues with the report.

“It was everything that we’ve been saying,” McCain said. “We’re glad to see it corroborated. Nothing that I didn’t know already.”

The report concludes there was a “significant strategic warning” about the possibility of an attack in the months leading up to it. The report details several intelligence reports, many redacted, that warned of an attack on Western establishments in Libya.

“Despite the clearly deteriorating security situation in Benghazi and requests for additional security resources, few significant improvements were made by the State Department to the security posture of the Temporary Mission Facility,” the report states. The report finds that, unlike the building maintained by State, facilities run by the CIA responded more quickly to security concerns, but the steps that were taken are redacted.